Most Recent Reread: From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

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The next installment in the sibling book club was From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg.  This classic book follows Claudia and James (Jamie) Kincaid, who run away from home and hide-out in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  I throughly enjoyed rereading this book and would definitely recommend it.

Some of my favorite quotes:

[Mrs. Frankweiler] "Both Jamie and Claudia had acquired a talent for being near but never part of a group...Some people, Saxonberg, never learn to do that all their lives, and some learn it all too well" (78). [Ezio Auditore da Firenze?]

[Mrs. Frankweiler] "You see, Saxonberg, Claudia had found the article about the statue too easily.  She didn't even look at the first sections of the paper.  I keep telling you that often the search proves more profitable then the goal.  Keep that in mind when you're looking for something in my files" (73).

[Claudia Kincaid] "How can that be? A statue isn't something like an umbrella that you leave in a taxi and lose" (85).

[James Kincaid] "Claudia, dear, I'm no angel" (88).

"'Someone very rich must have tossed in this quarter,' Jamie whispered.  'Someone very poor,' Claudia corrected. 'Rich people have only penny wishes'" (98).

[Mrs. Frankweiler] "The adventure is over.  Everything gets over, and nothing is ever enough.  Except the part you carry with you.  It's the same as going on a vacation.  Some people spend all their time on a vacation taking pictures so that when they get home they can show their friends evidence that they had a good time.  They don't pause to let the vacation enter inside them and take that home" (161).

[Claudia Kincaid] "Five minutes of planning are worth fifteen minutes of just looking" (165).

[Mrs. Frankweiler] "When the stakes are high, I never cheat.  I consider myself too important to do that" (170).

[Mrs. Frankweiler] "I think you should learn, of course, and some days you must learn a great deal.  But you should also have days when you allow what is already in you to swell up inside of you until it touches everything.  And you can feel it inside you.  If you never take time out to let that happen, then you just accumulate facts, and they begin to rattle around inside of you.  You can make noise with them, but never really feel anything with them.  It's hollow" (175-176).

Works Cited

Konigsburg, E. L. From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler,. New York: Atheneum, 1967. Print.

Most Recent Reread: The Phantom Tollbooth

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My brother, sisters and I have started a book club.  Our first book, The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster, was a delight to read.  I read this book several years ago in elementary school, and had forgotten what an amazing book it was.  My favorite character is Tock, the ever vigilant watchdog.  There is something reassuring about a ticking clock for me.  I'm the opposite of Captain Hook becuase I love the sound.

I love how the author uses wordplay and idiomatic expressions!  For example, Rhyme and Reason left Wisdom, so there was discord, one must jump to the island of conclusions, and the residents of Dictionoplis must eat their words.  

I also loved the many thought provoking sentences.

"...Today people use as many words as they can and think themselves very wise for doing so.  For always remember that while it is wrong to use too few, it is often far worse to use too many" (68).  

"...'Oh no, not in the middle of the program,' she replied, and turned the silence up a little louder" (152).  

"I suppose they are necessary, for you'd never really know how pleasant one was unless you knew how unpleasant it wasn't" (164). 

"You know that it's there, but you just don't know where--but just because you can never reach it doesn't mean that it's not worth looking for" (197). 

"For you often learn more by being wrong for the right reasons than you do by being right for the wrong reasons" (233).  

"...It's not just learning things that's important.  It's learning what to do with what you learn and learning why you learn things at all that matters" (233).  

"As you've discovered, so many things are possible just as long as you don't know they're impossible" (247).

Now I just have to wait for my siblings to finish reading it.  I'm excited to see what they have to say.  Perhaps I will post more once we have discussed it.  

Works Cited

Juster, Norton, and Jules Feiffer. The Phantom Tollbooth. New York: Epstein & Carroll ; Distributed by Random House, 1961. Print.